Maybe They’ll Be Kicked Off The Drill Team Too

Investigators are checking reports that some students at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey set to graduate haven’t done all the required work for a degree. The official reason is faculty overseers sometimes signed off on blank forms that were filled in later by people who hadn’t met their obligations. The signed forms make it appear they had. The school’s corruption problems already have raised doubts about accreditation. Guess a fish really does rot from the head down.

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About Bob Ingle

Bob Ingle is Senior Political Columnist for Gannett New Jersey newspapers and co-author of The New York Times' Best Seller, "The Soprano State: New Jersey's Culture of Corruption" and "Chris Christie: The Inside Story Of His Rise To Power". He has won numerous journalism awards and is often a news analyst on radio and television. Twitter @ bobingle99.

10 Responses to Maybe They’ll Be Kicked Off The Drill Team Too

Another brilliant move by the brainiacs over at UMDNJ: Students set to graduate haven’t done the required degree work; the brilliant UMDNJ faculty sometimes signed off on blank forms that were filled in later.

With that kind of success-oriented results, maybe Jon-Boy oughta give Petillo a “performance bonus” to go with the $600,000 severance he bestowed on this paragon of intellectual virtue.

Amazing that every con artist in creation landed a position at UMDNJ. Musta had a secret code—maybe a handshake.

La Cosa Nostra should be as well-organized as the criminial enterprise over at UMDNJ.

And let’s not forget, the phony UMDNJ “graduates” are the ones who will be operating on us, treating our children, diagnosing us, and prescribing medication.

Newark City Council President Donald Bradley who used his influence at UMDNJ to steer jobs and contracts to friends and family, is being removed as a trustee.

Bradley was another relic of the Infamous McGreevey Legacy of Crime and Corruption, and was appointed to the UMDNJ board by former Gov. James E. McGreevey in June 2003.

Bradley is under scrutiny by the federal monitor now overseeing the university and its hospital for rampant crime thievery and government fraud.

Former federal Judge Herbert J. Stern—UMDNJ’s monitor—charged last month that Bradley had engaged in “unethical and potentially illegal” activities as a trustee.

According to a damning report, the monitor said Bradley pressured UMDNJ to sublet an empty medical building — at a token fee of $1 a year — to an individual with ties to the councilman.

Duh. Can you say kickback?

Bradley also made personal appeals to get jobs at UMDNJ for friends or family members — sometimes accompanying candidates to interviews, the report said. In one notorious case, Bradley’s then-daughter-in-law told a UMDNJ staffer she didn’t have to do any work b/c Bradley was her FIL.

UMDNJ also spent more than $10,000 at Bradley’s behest to underwrite a lavish, catered affair at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center—a taxpayer paid thinly-disguised re-election vehicle held when Bradley was running for City Council.

Clueless Bradley caught with his sticky fingers in the taxpayers cookie jar, said yesterday he was not aware he was being removed by the governor. “I didn’t know what he was going to do. It’s his call. He’s the new governor,” Bradley told news agencies.

Bradley—still clueless— did not know if the monitor’s report had anything to do with his ouster, but told reporters he would remain active in health matters.

This sucker better not be anywhere near health facilities I patronize.

As a final gift to taxpayers, Bradley announced before the release of the critical monitor’s report that he would not seek re-election to the city council.

There probably was a handshake and a decoder ring too but it hasn’t been disclosed. The secret code has come to light. Every one applying for a job was given a rating 1, 2, or 3 depending on who their sponsor was. For 1s they would run all over campus trying to secure employment.

At least 20 dental students im plicated in a growing cheating scandal at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey will not be allowed to graduate with their class next week — and may never receive their diplomas. The students will be barred from the weekend convocation of New Jersey Dental School, as well as the UMDNJ commencement ceremonies Wednesday, in disciplinary measures meted out by the university yesterday afternoon.

Those students are suspected of trading credits for dental proce dures they must perform to qualify for graduation. In a somber and at times tearful meeting, Dean Cecile A. Feldman told the student doctors–nearly a quarter of the graduating class of 84–that their degrees were in real jeopardy. “It’s been one of the worst days of my career,” she said, following the closed-door meeting with the affected students in a conference room off B-Level of the dental school in Newark. Feldman said she and her faculty have worked with the students involved for four years, and gotten very close to them. “It’s like telling a son or daughter that they can’t do what they’ve wanted to do for a long time,” she said.

However, she added that faculty leaders agreed it was inappropriate for those suspected of cheating to participate in a ceremony celebrating others who have earned their degrees. The accused students will face individual hearings or mediation boards, which will determine their ultimate fate. “It would be fair to say these penalties will not be light ones,” Feldman predicted. “Some may not graduate at all. That’s a possibility. That’s a possibility. And that’s very sad to see.”

The disciplinary actions followed an internal investigation that found some students were secretly trading, and possibly selling, credits for completing clinical procedures. The 20 facing disciplinary action so far include some who ad mitted guilt, and others who were implicated through discrepancies in records. More could yet be added to the list, officials said.

It was just the latest in a series of upheavals that have befallen the state’s medical university over the past year. Separately yesterday, officials from UMDNJ’s School of Osteopathic Medicine were brought before a federal grand jury looking into allegations that documents tied to an ongoing criminal investigation were being systematically destroyed at UMDNJ’s campus in South Jersey.

The university is under the oversight of a federal monitor after it was criminally charged with Medicaid fraud in December. The events at the dental school, though, marked the first time UMDNJ’s problems directly involved its academic mission. Students at New Jersey Dental School are expected to complete a minimum number of clinical proce dures in various specialties to meet graduation requirements — such as fillings, root canals and crowns. In all, they perform more than 100 different clinical procedures — some many times.

At the end of a procedure, a student dentist must sign the patient record and a separate form — known as a patient encounter form — that is entered into a computerized system responsible for tracking of both patient treatment and student requirements. Faculty members are required to sign both the patient record and encounter form for each procedure.

However, some students were getting forms signed by faculty members before filling in their own names. They then traded the forms with other students who needed credit, according to Feldman. The cheating came to light nearly two weeks ago, after a number of students who had not yet met all their clinical requirements were told they would not receive their diplomas until that work was completed. They then raised complaints with the dean that others were graduating by trading credits.

No faculty members have been disciplined. The investigation is continuing. None of the students facing disciplinary action was identified, and could not be contacted.

New Jersey Dental School, the sole dental school in the state, has 321 students attending a four-year DMD program and another 78 postdoctoral students.

Karen Hart, director of the American Dental Association’s Council on Dental Education and Licensure, said she had never heard of such a cheating scheme. She said it would not affect the school’s prospects for reaccreditation as long as the university deals with the problem appropriately and gives the students fair hearings before meting out discipline. “We would look to make sure that whatever policies and proce dures UMDNJ has in regards to cheating would be followed and applied fairly,” she said. “We would want to make sure that the students are being given due process.”

Students at a New Jersey dental school embroiled in a growing cheating scandal dropped a bomb yesterday – they claim their teachers knew they were falsifying paperwork.

At least 20 students at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey have been barred from graduating next week after admitting that they traded credits for dental procedures with other pupils in order to get a diploma.

Their classmates at the school told The Post yesterday their teachers knew about the widespread practice of submitting paperwork for procedures they didn’t necessarily perform – and that almost all the 84 fourth-year students were involved.

“Do you think this is just our class? Do you think we were brilliant enough to do this ourselves?” said one of the unidentified students, who lives in New York.

A doctor who supervised the students while they performed procedures at a university hospital backed his assertions. He said faculty were shocked when the university’s administration decided to crack down on this year’s students. Another New York student added, “This whole thing is ridiculous. This is a longstanding practice.”

He explained that the scam worked when patients entered the dental clinic and an attending student realized the procedure needed was one they already had credit for. “If one person is doing a crown procedure and they realize that they already have the procedure they’ll hand off the chart,” he said.

A different name appeared on the school’s paperwork that doled out credits to that on the medical records that just listed the attending student.

University Dean Cecile A. Feldman yesterday said passing off procedures they didn’t perform as their own was a serious breach of the schools ethics and that the school would punish any student that had been found guilty of the practice. Feldman admitted she had heard that some faculty were involved in the scandal and would seek to investigate them.

The irate dean said the school was determined to bring all those involved in the scandal to justice – even if it meant none of the 2006 class graduated. “If it’s the entire class, we will address the entire class. What they did was outright wrong,” Feldman said.

She said she was prepared to go through past records to determine if previous graduates were also involved in the cheating scandal. “The UMDNJ degree up on the wall, that has meaning,” she said. “It’s our obligation to make sure that if we have students who are not acting in an honorable way . . will discipline them appropriately.”

Can someone tell me what justification there is to have Mr. Stern make so muchmoney considering the industrywide issues now facing the University. Students cheat all over. We just found out a plagirist at harvardfor god’s sakes. Do we really need to spend millions to uncover someone’s scotch drinking or car driving habits (references to the two former administrators recently chronicled)Why is the new Board silent?Where is the bomshell? Other hospitals have paid medicaid fines-you guys have covered these stories-St. Barnabas and Jersey Shore spring to mind-but we didn’t get the daily screaming headlines.I think a real cover-up concerning maybe the SCC or another institution is the real reason we are being deflected from the truth.How do you justify spending 8 billion dollars and no one scream, yell curse and emply federal monitors. (the Sschool Construction Company Why? Because we’re talking about building schools in mostly urban areas and as one of your columnists said recently,”Don’t nobody like cities or the folks who live in them”Sermon over

So another black eye for UMDNJ I expect the public is now so numb from daily exposes that this one receives little attention and action by UMDNJ. Obviously these students are not worthy to receive a diploma or licensing to practice dentistry for the children and families in our urban centers. But UMDNJ will find a way to award the diplomas and keep the matter hidden from the public. Another scandal that needs investigation is the medical residency program. Researchers at UMDNJ in programs like neurology require foreign medical school graduates to work in their laboratories as unpaid “volunteers” for a number of years. Eventually the researcher will pave the way so that the medical school graduate enters the residency program with just a cursory evaluation to give the false impression that UMDNJ is selective in choosing future doctors. Often these volunteers have limited English skills so they are unable to comprehend the training materials and subsequently the patients suffer.

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Bob Ingle, Senior Political Columnist for Gannett New Jersey newspapers, on politics in "The Soprano State".

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Bob IngleBob Ingle is Senior Political Columnist for Gannett New Jersey Newspapers and co-author of The New York Times' Best Seller, "The Soprano State: New Jersey's Culture of Corruption." Hear him Fridays at 5 p.m. on www.tommygshow.com radio. twitter.com/bobingle99 E-mail Bob

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